


Read my lips

by Laramie



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 13:57:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4922191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laramie/pseuds/Laramie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jimmy is quite taken by the handsome guy who starts coming into the coffee shop he works in during uni.</p><p>I wrote a coffee shop AU. I'm ashamed of myself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Read my lips

The first time the handsome guy came into the coffee shop, he stared at Jimmy for a couple of seconds. Jimmy would have loved to think it was because of his natural charm and attractiveness, but he knew that on that morning there was still cocoa powder on his face from a mishap while making hot chocolate, and he had not even showered because he had woken up late. By contrast, this guy looked perfectly polished with clear grey eyes, subtly strong arms and a truly terrible fashion sense; he was wearing a dark blue woollen vest and a green checked shirt.

"Hi, what can I get for you?" Jimmy parroted after an embarrassingly long pause.

Grey-eyes gave a painfully fake-looking smile and pointed at the promotional leaflet sellotaped onto the counter between them.

"Coffee and a chocolate cookie?" Jimmy checked, and Grey-eyes nodded.

Jimmy made the coffee and put the cookie on a plate. "Milk?" he asked. Grey-eyes shook his head. When Grey-eyes turned to go, Jimmy allowed himself until the count of three to watch him, before looking to the next customer in the line.

Grey-eyes came in regularly after that - two or three times a week. Judging from the time of year (mid-September), the guy's age and the fact that he always had a laptop and two or three books in front of him, Jimmy guessed that he was a uni student, like Jimmy himself, but he had never seen Grey-eyes on campus.

Jimmy had never been shy, but Grey-eyes clearly was, as he had never spoken a word to Jimmy, and it made Jimmy bashful too. For the first fortnight, Grey-eyes had just pointed at the promotional leaflet, and by the time the offer was over, Jimmy just said: "Usual?" and, when Grey-eyes nodded, made his black-coffee-and-chocolate-cookie order.

"Surprised you haven't asked him out yet," Alfred, Jimmy's coworker, said one day as he was wiping the counter.

Jimmy looked up from the slightly misshapen cupcake that he was contemplating whether he would get away with nicking on the grounds that it was substandard. "Who?"

"That dark-haired bloke you keep staring at whenever he comes in. It never usually takes you this long."

Jimmy was perfectly open about being bisexual, but that did not mean that he wanted to discuss his love life with a twerp like Alfred, who had taken nearly two terms to stop asking ignorant questions about it. He therefore said the only thing he could think of: "Shut up, Alfred."

It was true that the one, two, three count he allowed himself to watch the guy for was getting slower, and that he sometimes found himself, during quieter moments, staring at the man with the grey eyes, stripy socks, and those goddamn sexy glasses he put on to read. He just hoped that Alfred was the only one to have noticed him looking.

"He's probably straight, anyway," Jimmy said, half to himself.

"All I'm going to say," Alfred replied, "is that he always seems to be in _your_ line."

After about a month of Grey-eyes coming in with his books and laptop, he arrived one day without them. He was a bit grey-faced and twitchy.

"You look nervous," Jimmy managed to say, only the second time he had said anything non-coffee-related to Grey-eyes. "You got a date?"

Grey-eyes nodded as Jimmy turned to make his coffee. Now that he had sort-of managed to start a conversation, Jimmy decided to do some fishing. "Well, I hope she… or he… is nice," he said, his words loud enough to cross the counter despite hiding his blush against the coffee machine. Grey-eyes said nothing. When Jimmy caught sight of him again, he was looking at his phone. _Fine, ignore me then_ , he thought grumpily, putting the coffee on the counter with perhaps a little too much force, and causing it to spill over the side a bit. He definitely didn't watch Grey-eyes all the way to his seat.

Jimmy learned two things about Grey-eyes that afternoon:

1) He dated men.

2) He was deaf.

The latter, Jimmy gathered from the fact that Grey-eyes and his date seemed to be using sign language. He watched the conversation flashing between them, scowling, and unable to pick out a single word that they were signing. Did sign language even have words? He had no idea. However, he did not think that it was only his wishful thinking that made Grey-eyes look… sort of bored.

Of course, the advantage of living at a university was that there were all sorts of public lectures and night classes going on. Jimmy, going to more effort to talk to someone than he ever had before, signed up to a Wednesday-evening sign language class. His feeling of ridiculousness on the way to the first class left him swearing never to go back, but by the end of the session he was hooked. It was fascinating. He went every week, learning the new grammar and expanding his vocabulary and spending more of his time off looking at BSL websites than he did on sites for his music degree.

It was only a few weeks before he decided to try it with Grey-eyes - he was too impatient to wait any longer. And so, when Grey-eyes got to the front of the line, Jimmy signed: _Hi, name mine J-i-m-m-y_. In his nerves, he fumbled the fingerspelling, and he was not entirely sure that he hadn't just told Grey-eyes that his name was Jommy. He had to stare at his hands as he did it, but when he looked up he saw that Grey-eyes' face had lit up.

Grey-eyes signed something back excitedly; he seemed to be signing his name, but it was all too fast for Jimmy to catch anything.

Jimmy held his hands up in surrender, before signing: _Slowly, please. I know little._

At what was probably a snail's pace, Grey-eyes signed: _I'm happy to see you can sign. My name's T-h-o-m-a-s._

His tongue poking between his lips with concentration, Jimmy repeated: _T-h-o-m-a-s?_ to check that he had it right.

Thomas nodded, still smiling.

 _I make your coffee,_ Jimmy signed, and beat a hasty retreat to the coffee machine. Thomas's smile might just be the most stunning thing he had ever seen.

Jimmy put Thomas's order on the counter and took his money; Thomas thanked him in sign and went to sit down, spreading his books around him as usual.

The following day, Jimmy stumbled through asking how Thomas had always known what he was saying. Thomas quirked one eyebrow as he signed: _I watch your lips._

There was something about the expression on his face as he signed that made Jimmy's stomach flip.

They continued signing to each other as the weeks went on and Jimmy's capabilities improved. When there were no customers, Jimmy signed to Thomas from his place behind the counter as Thomas worked on what Jimmy learned was his PhD project. He also learned that his first assumption of Thomas being shy was dead wrong; he was embarrassed about his voice, which he had been mocked over in the past, but he was fun and outgoing and had a dryly amusing comment for every occasion.

A week before Christmas, when Jimmy was stressed over deadlines and the exams he would sit when he came back from the holiday, Thomas came in and asked: _Do you want to go out for a drink with me?_

In that moment, Jimmy's day took a turn for the fantastic. _A date?_ he clarified, having looked up the word weeks ago.

Thomas nodded, with hope in his eyes.

Jimmy grinned. He was met with an expectant, almost exasperated look that he interpreted as _Well?!_ Instead of speaking, Jimmy leaned over the counter, pulled Thomas towards him by the shoulder and planted a kiss on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure to what extent I should preserve BSL grammar; I have settled for writing the exact words Jimmy signed and fully translating Thomas's signing to English, to convey the idea that Jimmy's stumbling through while Thomas is fluent. I hope it works out alright.


End file.
